Immigration: the solution

By Kenneth Matinale

May 16, 2006

1. Raise the minimum wage significantly and ENFORCE it.

2. Enact national health care for all U.S. citizens.

This is in addition to the obvious stuff:

1. deport illegal aliens and put them on the end of the line;
2. solve two problems at once by bringing our troops home from Iraq and have them protect the borders, especially along the wall that should be built between the U.S. and Mexico.

Yes, the United States Army, not the national guard, not the border patrol, should be used to protect the nation’s borders. That’s as basic as it gets when it comes to national security and defense. Change or remove any laws that may preclude this such as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. It would also be helpful to treat Mexico as an antagonist, not as an ally. Mexico has no incentive to stop the flow of its most disadvantaged citizens into the U.S. Stop pretending that it does and stop trying to not offend the Mexican ruling elite. How about a Radio Free Mexico program to incite the poor Mexicans to petition the Mexican government to address their grievances, rather than illegal aliens rallying in the U.S. Until the economic system in Mexico is changed, Mexicans will continue to flow into the U.S. Mexico has natural resources. It needs to distribute the wealth.

We also need a national database of all U.S. citizens and of all persons in the U.S. The president’s idea about an ID card for aliens only is a distraction as are all of the rest of his proposals on immigration. His only concern is to continue to allow his rich friends to exploit the aliens as cheap labor who have no rights.

The business people claim that they do not know if a worker is illegal. Sure they do. If the worker is willing to work for much less pay, that worker is illegal. Raise the pay and Americans will do the work. Have the government pay for health care and the business owners will not have that expense.

President Bush proposes an ID card but only for aliens, not for U.S. citizens. That won’t work. If a person states that he/she is a U.S. citizen, how will the employer know that the person is not lying? Will the employer request documentation? That will be fun. Americans have been conditioned to irrationally resist a national ID card or database with unexplained elliptical emotional metaphors such as 1984, black helicopters, Nazis, Communists, Waco. You name it. We currently rely on state drivers licenses. Great, national security based on the competence of the motor vehicle department. Times 50.

Bush basically indicates that the problem is that illegal aliens do not have papers. His solution is to give them papers. That’s no solution. That’s obfuscation.

Republican business owners are intrinsically opposed to illegal immigration. However, twenty years ago they realized that they had entered pig business heaven: cheap labor that they had only dreamed of. For them the current system of exploitation is better than slavery, which was one of many forms of cheap labor as were indentured servitude, serfdom, etc. As opposed to slavery, the business people do not need to house, feed, or clothe the illegal aliens; nor do they need to wait years for the young slaves to grow and become productive. They also do not need to buy slaves: no capital investment. They can get rid of them quickly and completely by contacting the border patrol to remove them, sometimes without even paying them. Of course employers do not pay social security, health care, workers compensation, etc. This system is an opiate for these Republican business people. They try to resist but they cannot. They are addicted. It trumps all their biases.

How about toughening and then enforcing the law against hiring illegal aliens? And add this: deport the employers along with the workers.

The Constitution needs to be amended in three ways.

Amendment XIV (14)

Section 1.

"All persons born ... in the United States ... are citizens of the United States"

This is being abused. Change it to require that at least one parent must be a U.S. citizen for the child to be a citizen.

"nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"

Change person to citizen.

Section 2.

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons"

Change persons to citizens. This is the most fundamental mistake in the Constitution.

Later "inhabitants" should be changed to citizens.

The only way to remove the business advantage of hiring illegal aliens rather than American citizens is to:

1. Raise the minimum wage significantly and ENFORCE it.
2. Enact national health care for all U.S. citizens.

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